Ahra-lessnes in white-Southern speech

[Jonathan Lighter]

Stil plenty of r-dropping in the NYC metro area and even more, I'd wager, in
the environs of Boston.
I have a friend from New Orleans who, as Darla indicates, frequently drops
"r's."  In fact, she sounds more like an older New Yorker than any non-New
Yorker I've ever heard.

People around Charleston and Savannah also tend to drop it.

I don't doubt that "r" dropping is giving way to r-fulness nationally, but
in my experience it is far from extinct.

As I once observed here, I hardly ever drop "r"s, but that is partly the
result of a conscious decision at a very early age to sound like Roy Rogers
and Gene Autry. (Not a joke.)

JL


On Mon, Jun 15, 2009 at 1:51 PM, Darla Wells <lethe9 at gmail.com> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Darla Wells <lethe9 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Ahra-lessnes in white-Southern speech
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> My daughter has picked up the local dialect and drops her [r]s all the
> time=
> .
> We are in Lafayette, Louisiana, and I am not sure, but what she is speaking
> sounds like a cross between country Cajun and New Orleans Yat. I hear this
> quite often among the college kids here who are from the area.
> Darla
>
> 2009/6/15 Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com>
>
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> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> > Subject:      Ahra-lessnes in white-Southern speech
> >
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------=
> ------
> >
> > Are there any white-Southern speakers left who *don't* use [r] in all
> > the places where Northerners do? I watched a Weather Channel show on
> > the Great Tornado Season of '74. Many ordinary white folk from
> > Kentucky and Alabama were interviewed WRT their memories of that
> > season. Only one speaker, from around Dothan and Huntsville, Alabama,
> > failed to use [r] and that was in only one word: *government*, which
> > he pronounced as approximately "gum mint" [g^m mI at nt].
> >
> > They all used what black speakers usually characterize as the
> > "hillbilly" dialect. The "Southern" dialect is the ahra-less one
> > usually attempted nowadays only by Northern actors attempting to
> > portray Southern-speakers.
> >
> > Is BE the only r-less AmE dialect left with a number of speakers large
> > enough to bother to count?
> > --
> > -Wilson
> > =96=96=96
> > All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
> > come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
> > -----
> > -Mark Twain
> >
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>
> --=20
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> warning. -Catherine Aird
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